This illness doesn't seem to want to go away. I took Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off work (in addition to ANZAC day on Tuesday) and really did nothing. Just sat around in bed or curled up on the couch all day. Slept a lot, watched DVDs, read books and listened to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio plays. Tried to relax and get well.

Tried to take it easy on the weekend too. Didn't really do anything apart from going out for dinner with some friends on Saturday night. Back to work on Monday even though I was still feeling crummy. Had a fairly busy week at work and still feeling quite sick most of the time. Mum came round last night and we made chestnut soup together which was nice. Tonight a friend of mine is coming round for dinner. She is out here from England and I haven't seen her for ages, so that should be nice.

Nothing much else to say today. Life has been fairly uneventful and cloggy-headed.

Yesterday was ANZAC day. I woke up feeling ill. Sore throat, cloggy nose, the works. So unfair on a public holiday! Anyway, I soldiered on and cleaned the house. We had to get it done because we are hosting a body corporate meeting here tomorrow night. Finished the cleaning and had a little bit of rest time before we went out.

Saw Dylan Moran at the Hamer Hall (same place I saw The Goodies). Dylan's show was fantastic. Really, really funny. His style reminded me a lot of Eddie Izzard. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Went down to Southgate afterwards and had baked potatoes for dinner. Came home and watched CSI (my favourite dose of tv garbage for the week)

Didn't sleep very well last night and woke up this morning feeling sicker than ever. I dragged myself out of bed. Trent said "If you're feeling ill you should stay home" I was worried because the girl who is now doing the secondment that I was doing before was going to be on her own today. Trent said they should have thought of that before they kicked me out of the position. Good point really. Anyway I had a shower and still felt completely crap so I decided to go back to bed. Very boring and uneventful day. Went to the doctor this morning who told me the usual crap. "Get lots of rest, drink lots of fluids" I also got the usual speech about how anti-biotics wont help me. Yeah, I know that! It's only a virus! I wasn't asking for any damn anti-biotics anyway! I'm only here because I have to have a certificate for work.

Anyway that's enough from me today because I'm still feeling crappy (even though I spent most of the day sleeping!)

Saw Lano & Woodley last night. They were fantastic! I'm really glad I went to see them before they split up. Has anyone seen their tv show? I haven't seen it since the ABC screened it years ago. We were actually in the studio audience for the filming of one of the episodes. That was heaps of fun. Seems like a million years ago now! I think it was 1997. It's funny, the other night when I was watching Frank Woodley on "Thank God You're Here" I suddenly thought that he looks a bit like David Tennant. It's only from certain angles. I guess it's because he's tall and lanky with a goofy smile. The weird thing is though, I totally fancy David Tennant at the moment but I've never fancied Frank.I do quite fancy Colin Lane though (Lano). I don't know what it is about him. I always thought he was funny as the character. Then one night, back in the early/mid nineties we were at "A Night of Infectious Laughter". It was a comedy night they used to have to raise money for AIDS research. I saw Colin after the show. He was just hanging about in his normal clothes and being normal. And I just found him completely adorable. Don't know what that was about really, but I still find him cute.

Nothing of note happened today. Just went to work. It was busy and tiring. Boring! So I thought I'd take this opportunity to have a little rant and rave about my opinion...

What is with these skank-hoes??? Pardon my rudeness but these girls are so cheap and slutty looking and their songs drive me nuts! I never liked that first song about "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" To which my reaction was, if he did, then wouldn't YOU be his girlfriend instead of me??? And their current song is driving me crazy. I don't know what it's called but half the words are blank anyway. "I don't give a *** keep looking at my **** I'm gonna do my thing while you're playing with your ****" They seem to be suggesting that it's quite OK for guys to perve at girls bits and the girls really just shouldn't worry about it. And what is that bit about how "all the guys just want to ha ha ha ha ha ha ha". Am I missing something? What's so hillarious about the fact that guys just want to shag you?

I'll admit that I'm probably a bit bitter and twisted because I'm slightly over weight and I'm not "traditionally good-looking" But I just find it kind of disturbing that these are the role models for teenage girls (and even pre-teen girls) today. It's quite depressing!!

On the flip-side, can I just say a big HOORAY!!! for Pink. I totally adore her song "Stupid Girl" which just says everything I've been thinking. And until this song came out I was really starting to worry that I was the only person in the world who thinks this way! I just find it scary and depressing that girls from the age of about 9 or 10 years old - up to women in their 30s at my work - all seem to be sucked into this current trend of dressing like sluts and acting like bimbos!

I'm going to post the lyrics to Pink's song here because it's so great. If you get the chance to check out the video clip too I highly recomend it.

((Maybe if I act))Maybe if I act like thatFlipping my blonde hair back((Maybe if I act))Push up my bra like thatStupid girl!((girl girl girl))

Maybe if I act like that((Maybe if I act like that))That guy will call me back((That guy will call me back))What a paparazzi girl((What a paparazzi girl))I don't wanna be a stupid girl

((Stupid girl))

Maybe if I act like that((Maybe if I act like that))Flipping my blonde hair back((Flipping my blonde hair back))Push up my bra like that((Push up my bra like that))I don't wanna be a stupid girl((Stupid girl))

Went to my best mate's 30th last night. She had it at the Harp of Erin hotel in Kew. It was a good night. Had a good pub dinner (lamb cutlets with gravy and mashed potatoes) and a few drinks. (maybe a few too many drinks I'm afraid)

Our friend Tina was there. She has recently come out to us and her girlfriend Ang was there too. We've all met Ang a few times before anyway but this was the first time we've been out with them knowing that they are a couple. Tina was telling us that her Mum is not dealing well with the situation at all. She has banned Ang from even coming in the house (and since Tina still lives with her folks this is really difficult) Poor things! I feel bad for them.

Our other friend Alisa was there with her boyfriend Barry. When Alisa arrived she said hello and held out her hand to me. Being a bit slow on the uptake I was thinking "What? Does she want me to kiss her hand?" Then I noticed the engagement ring on her finger!! Barry asked her to marry him last weekend! It wasn't a huge surprise because they are quite devout Christians. They've been together for a year and we all kind of suspected that they would get engaged before too long. Christians always seem to get married quicker than non-Christians. I think it's partly because they don't believe in sex before marriage and they are dying for a shag (hehehehe sorry to be so crude but that's what I always think!) but it's also part of their doctrine I guess.

Today I've been feeling a little seedy. Not too bad really but just a mild hang-over. We watched the second episode of the latest series of Dr Who. Also watched last weeks and this weeks episodes of "Dr Who Confidential" which are sort of making-of type things. I really like these new series of Dr Who. It's become a bit of a ritual for us to download the episode from England over night on the Saturday night and then bunch up in front of the puter on a Sunday with the doona wrapped round us to check out the latest episode.

I'm loving David Tennant as the new Doctor. I especilly loved seeing him in the making-if stuff when he is speaking in his real accent. He does a very good English accent in Dr Who, and in pretty much everything I've seen him in lately. But I just want to eat him up when I hear him talking with his Scottish accent. Tooooo yummy! Does anyone remember him as Cambell in "Taking Over the Asylum"? I used to love that show. It must be from at least 10 years ago, probably more. Mum and I used to watch it together when I was living at home. It was a really great show and David Tennant's character was fantastic. I never saw David in anything after that until the last year or two. Suddenly now he's in everything! I wonder what he's been up to all these years. I must check it out online and find out.

Anyway I'd best be off. We're going to see Lano & Woodley tonight.

P.S. I bought the new Singstar game the other night. It's all rock songs. It's pretty cool. Some easier ones for boys to sing on there so maybe I'll be able to talk Trent into playing it with me a bit more often. The new Buzz game is coming out this week too! Yay!

Better keep this short and sweet because Mum is coming for dinner in a minute.

A customer rang up today and was talking to Litsa in my office. She kept saying that this is 2009 not 2006. She got really mad at Litsa and told her that she didn't appreciate Litsa lying to her about what year it is! Weeeeirrrd! Kept making me think of "12 Monkeys"

Yesterday I had a call from a customer who wanted to know if her registration was paid or not because she couldn't remember if she had paid it. I was trying to work out what was going on and eventually she confessed to me that she had phoned up and paid it while she was drunk and didn't know if it had worked!! A fairly risky excercise considering the cost is nearly $550! Anyway, she had done it OK.

Then Desi had a call from a guy whose licence was due to be suspended because he had too many demerit points. He claimed it wasn't his fault because he is a Private Investigator and he HAS to break the speed limit so he can keep up with the people he is following!

People are strange!!

New Singstar game comes out today. Trent couldn't find it in JB though. I'll check in Target tonight.

Hi folks. Yes it's me and I'm back. I hope there's still some people around who remember who I am. hehehehehehe. Anyway I will try to do a short re-cap on what's been happening since I last wrote....

Work: things have been going quite well at work. I was still happy in the secondment which kept getting extended and extended. Just before I went on annual leave my boss told me he wanted me to stay in the secondment until the end of the financial year (ie the end of June) and was sort of hinting that he would like to keep me there longer if he could. So all was going well until today, which was my first day back after annual leave. The guy I've been working with in the secondment was having an argument with my Team Leader from my regular position. When the boss came in he decided to end my secondment today just to "stop the Team Leader from whinging". Great I knew I would have to go back eventually but I wasn't prepared for it to be today!! Plus I didn't like the way they went about it on the spur of the moment like that. And after 6 months or more in my secondment there was not the least bit of ceremony. No goodbye party, no "thanks for all you've done" just - off you go then. Hmph! Anyway, that's work for ya! It stinks!

Our house: the house is going well. We have settled in and really like the place. The mortgage seems to be going along OK too. So nice not to have to go house-hunting any more. Hooray! I've bought a few more SingStar games so I now have all of them. And there's a new one coming out in two days! Yay! Also a new Buzz game coming out next week! Hooray for PS2! I finally finished reading The Pythons autobiography. I then read Eric Idle's Greedy Bastard diary which was cool too. Over my holiday I read Nigel Hawthorne's autobiography which was really interesting. And I am now reading Tony Martin's collection of short stories called "Lolly Scramble" which I'm really enjoying as well.

Friends and Family: Trent's Nanna has sold her house and moved into the retirement village last week while we were away on holidays. My mum had to have urgent laser surgery on her eye for glaucoma. I have to take her back next week for the other eye! One of my girlfriends from high school came out to us that she is gay and her best mate is more than just a friend! A friend of mine who was living in England on a defacto visa got dumped by her partner and was forced to come back to Australia straight away. Poor love is completely misrable now. And all my friends are turning 30! My best mate's 30th party is this Saturday. And the girl who came out to us has decided to have a DRAG party for her 30th. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to convince Trent to wear a dress. Easy for me to go in blokes clothes though. Went for lunch with our pals Ken & Belle yesterday and saw their two adorable new puppies!! So cwute! [img border="0" alt=""][/img]

Lucky last, some other general "me" stuff: Just finished two weeks annual leave. Trent and I went for a driving holiday up the coast. Stayed a night in Lakes Entrance and a night in Merimbula. Then we stayed with Trent's Dad in Shoalhaven Heads for a few days. Then on the way back we stayed in Eden and Metung. It was a lovely break. Then came home and ate hot cross buns and chocolate for Easter. Yay! The Melbourne Comedy festival is on at the moment. I went to the Gala because my friend had a spare ticket. It was a fun night. We have also booked tickets to see Dylan Moran and Lano & Woodley. Should be fun! And frighteningly, I too shall soon be turning 30! Trent and I will be turning 30 within a month of each other so we are thinking of having a combined party. Not sure what we want to do yet. It's all seeming a bit too much like hard work to me! Also in July it will be 10 years that we've been together! So we have to think of something interesting to do to celebrate our anniversary as well.

So mostly I've been going pretty well. and I promise I will try to get on here a bit more often!!I will try and post some photos from our trip too.

P.S. I cut up some chillis for dinner and then rubbed my nose. Now my nose is burning!!!

P.P.S The new series of Dr Who started in England on Saturday so we (naughtily) down-loaded it and watched it on Sunday.I like David Tennant. He's a bit of a hottie.

Hi Folks! I'm back! And we have internet on at our new house! Whoo hoo!

We are all moved in to the new place now. One room isn't completely unpacked still but we are getting there. Really happy with the house and really liking it. Don't feel like we've had much chance to reeeeaaallly settle in and enjoy the place completely yet though. It's all been a bit crazy moving and unpacking and going back to the old flat to clean up and so on and so on.

Work is totally insane at the moment. The guy I was working with has gone on leave so I'm doing his job and my job. It's really hard and I'm tearing my hair out! Also the boss is away on leave too which means the big big boss keeps dropping by to harass me!! Ack! Plus we are really short staffed which means we are busy and can't answer calls within our service level targets. It's all a bit out of control. It's very draining and kind of doing my head in! Bad timing when I'm trying to get everything sorted with the house move and stuff. Anyway the guy I work with should be back in 2 or 3 days. Thank God!!!

Trent's Nanna has decided to move to a sort of retirement village place and sell the family home. Did I mention this already in my last journal entry? Probably. Anyway it's all a bit weird since Trent's Grandad basically built the house and Trent's Mum and all her sisters grew up there. We went down yesterday for Trent to get some things he wanted from his Grandad's old shed. On the weekend it was one year since Trent's Grandad died. Sad. We are going to try and get all the cousins and everyone together at the house so that everyone can take things they want and at the same time reminisce (sp?) about Grandad and all that.

Anyhoo - the desk we have the computer on in the new place is tooo small. I feel like my nose is going to hit the screen!! And after being at the computer all day at my crazy work I think I need a rest from it. So I best be off. Will try to catch up a bit better soon and get back on the forums and catch up on everyone else's journals and all that stuff!!

The day is almost upon us. So what am I doing? Rushing round getting all the last minute things neatly organised and off to bed for a good night's rest? Noooooo!!! The house is a pig-sty. It still feels like there are a billion things yet to pack even though we've been packing for a million years! And I'm just buggering about on the computer ignoring it all. I really should just go to bed. We really have to get it all sorted tomorrow though, because the removalist is coming at 8am on Friday!

I seem to have developed a strange obsession with boxes now too. Every time I see a box I'm asking people if I can have it and I'm thinking about what sort of things would fit well in it. How sad and pathetic! God knows what we are going to do with all the damn boxes once we move anyway!

Anyway, my journal entries are very very boring of late. But now is not the time to rectify this because I'm really tired and should get my rest in to prepare for tomorrow. Don't know when I'll be able to get here again. Should try not to get on the puter at all tomorrow because I don't need the distraction. But then I don't know how long it will be before we get the internet connection on at the new place. I'll have withdrawals! Argh!

Anyway, I'll be back some time in the not toooo distant future. Time for sleepy bo-bos. Night night.

I haven't really got much to say today but thought I'd just post a brief entry. The weekend was stinking hot! We managed to get a bit of packing done but not as much as we would have liked. We locked ourselves out of the house on Sunday which is just what you want in 42 degree heat! Went to Jess's Mad hatter party on Saturday night which was fun. It was stinking hot too though! Yesterday after work I picked up the keys to our new house!!! We went round there to check it out and took a few boxes of stuff in. Everything looks OK which is good. Everyone keeps telling me how excited we must be, but to be honest we are both feeling kind of numb at the moment. I mean, I'm happy about it, but I don't think I'll be REALLY happy about it until we are actually moved in and settled.

Well things have gone cactus with the mortgage yet again!!! Bloody hell! Can things EVER go smoothly for us??? Obviously not! On Friday the money came out of our new account for the settlement cheque and all the other sundry fees which go along with it. From what the mortgage broker had told us we were expecting the extra fees to be around $1500 max. Well it turns out it was closer to $3500!! Plus we didn't actually know they would take ALL the fees out at settlement. The other issue is that the mortgage broker obviously did his sums wrongly because he had told us the loan amount would be enough to cover the stamp duty and a few other things. But it left us $1500 short of the stamp duty amount!!!!

So now we are suddenly $5000 out of pocket. By complete fluke we actually had just enough in the account to cover that. So I guess in some ways we should count ourselves lucky. If the money hadn't been in there the settlement probably would have been delayed and god knows what else. The thing which is not so lucky is that we were supposed to be living off that money for the next month!! We have Trent's car repayment, my car insurance (both around $750 a piece), also all the disconnection and reconnection fees, not to mention that our first mortgage repayment is due in two weeks!!! And, you know, we were sort of hoping to be able to EAT some time in the next month! Ack!!

At least I managed to get a bit of packing done today. We also took some bags of stuff to the Salvos. There was some good stuff in there too so I feel warm and fuzzy about that. And the guy came and took Grandpa's old radiogram away. (although he did come at 4:30pm - slightly annoying since he said he was coming at 10:30am!!!) I got Trent to take some photos of the gram for me to keep the memories of my Grandpa.

Tonight we are going to my friend's 30th. We can't even afford to get her a present at the moment. I hope she will understand. The theme for her party is mad-hatters tea party. Basically it just means we all have to wear a silly hat. I'm wearing a cowboy-ish type hat. Spose I better go and get ready now actually.

Today I took an RDO and Trent took the morning off so that we could get the loan paperwork sorted out. Unfortunately for me, I was designated driver for the day. This meant I had to drive from home in Glen Iris across to the credit union in Doncaster. Then from Doncaster to the Mortgage Broker in Camberwell. Then from Camberwell down to Chapel St to drop off Trent for work and have some lunch. Then back from Chapel St to Doncaster to the credit union again. And then finally from Doncaster back home to Glen Iris. Phew!!!

Anyway we got it all organised. So things are progressing and quite close to being finished. It's all so boring and time consuming - while at the same time being somehow slightly terrifying!! Every time we have to go for one of these meeting things I feel like a kid being called in to the head-master's office or something stupid like that. Being a grown-up is too much hard work!

I also found a place called "Recreation Radio" who will take our RadioGram. Anyone who doesn't know, a RadioGram is a big unit sort of like a side table. It's made from polished wood and built into it is a radio (am only of course - this thing's old!) and a gram (which is a record-player or turntable - but you should all know that from The Goodie's pirate radio station) Anyway, this thing is huge and there's no way it will fit in our new place. I'm quite sad to let it go because it belonged to my Grandpa who must have bought it in the 40s or 50s. But I'm afraid it just has to go. At least I've found a place that will take it for us though.

Anyway I really should be using the rest of my RDO to do some more packing. Mind you, I'm feeling totally wrecked from all the racing round this morning. But I've got to at least do a little bit of packing. Man I'm sick of packing! Anyway, not too long now. Soon we will be UNpacking!! And then it will all be finished. Hooray!

Well I haven't written in here for a little while. Been too tired and/or too busy! Must catch up a bit on the main points...

Last Wednesday Trent and I went out for dinner to celebrate nine-and-a-half years together! A pretty good acheivement I think! We had a lovely meal at a Japanese restaurant called Aya. After dinner we went for a walk and had a gelati. It was very nice.

On Saturday night we had a bunch of friends over to play the Buzz! quizz and the Singstar Karaoke games on my Playstation. We drank lots of red wine and ate lots of pizza. It was really fun! At the end we had a sing off where we all sung The Village People's YMCA.I got the best score. Yay for me!

Trent's mum was away for the weekend so we had the dog staying with us. He's had all these rashes on his skin (as dogs tend to get in summer) and is supposed to be taking anti-biotics. But do you think we could get the damn tablets into the dog?? Not on your life!! Usually when he has tablets we just put it in a blob of margarine or peanut butter or with some cheese and he will gobble it up. But these tablets smell so bad he wouldn't come near them regardless of what food we put them with. In the end we had to hold him and force the thing into his mouth. Even then he wouldn't swallow it and we basically had to hold his mouth closed for 10minutes waiting for it to dissolve. Anyway, he got his revenge on us. Waited till all our visitors had arrived and then threw up on the loungeroom floor. Ick!!!!!

Apart from that we've just been working and packing. Lots and lots of packing. Still feels like we've hardly made a dent though. Why do we have so much stuff??? And it's only one week to settlement day! Eek! I'm slightly panicked. Mainly just really looking forward to having the yukky stuff (like packing, organising all the paperwork and signing things and stuff, moving and unpacking) all finished and out of the way so we can settle in and enjoy the new house.

Oh and by the way - I have already achieved one of my New Year's resolutions which was to suck up to the boss so that I can stay on this secondment as long as possible. Well today he agreed to let me stay until Miso comes back. That's not til April!! Whoo hoo!!!

*Edit*Oh yeah, I forgot that I have a couple more photos to post:

The first one is of Trent and I many, many years ago in our early days together. Back when we both had long hair!! I think Trent was just about to poke out his tongue here...

And now for the "After" shot. This is us now. Well, I guess it was a year and a half ago rather than 'now' but near enough...

Phew! The bloody air-conditioning at work has busted. So we had 100 staff and 100 computers on our floor in the 30+ heat! Yuck! Irene and I had to go out and buy 100 icy-poles as some kind of token gesture. They are sending someone to fix it tomorrow morning. They better bloody-well fix it this time! Laura cracked-it with Building Services and said if they don't fix it tomorrow morning she's going to complain to the CEO! It's really too hard for people to have to work in those conditions.

Apart from being hot it was also busy and crazy today. And the system which splits the calls between us and our rural call centre wasn't working properly for a few hours which meant ALL the calls were coming to us! Argh! Anyway I managed to get most of my work done and we did OK in the end. I was feeling pretty cranky and headachy by the end of the day though. It was such a relief to get in my car and put the air conditioning on. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Nothing much else worth mentioning today really. Still reading the Pythons autobiography. It's a good un. Watched a thing about Marie Antoinette on SBS last night. Couldn't sleep well over night it was too hot and muggy. Anyway I'm just blabbing on now. Time to go.

Hi all.I was posting a pic of myself in another forum I belong to so I thought I would post it here too....

It's taken a while ago. Just after I'd lost quite a bit of weight. When I was at my skinniest. Wish I still looked like that! Time to start exercising again.

And while I'm here I might as well post a couple of other ones from NYE which I left out last time.

Here's another one of the outside of Hamer Hall (where the Goodies show was) with lots of people about

Here's one of a girl in the crowd who had light-up devils horns

And two more of the fireworks

That's all for now

*Edit* P.S. I packed all the DVDs yesterday, thinking we could live without them for the next few weeks until we move into the new place. We already gave up this evening and had to break into one of the boxes and watch "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells" because there was bugger all on telly.

My journal entries seem to have become very dull since I've been back at work. Nothing interesting going on.

Saturday morning we went to the hairdresser and then browsed around looking at kettles and microwaves and other things we need. Didn't buy anything though. Apart from that most of the weekend has just been packing and getting things organised ready to pack. Boring!

Even though I've been working my butt off with the packing and stuff, it kind of feels like I haven't acheived much. We took the electric guitar and amp that we bough from cash converters back to cc and sold it back to them. They wouldn't take my footspa though so I left it at one of those donation charity bin things instead.

Anyway, I don't really have anything else to say. I'm just crapping-on and avoiding doing some more packing. My mum just called me she is away on a music camp in Harrietville.

Just a short and photo-free entry today.Think I've either picked up a stomach bug or eaten something dodgy. I was up at 3am for the toilet and everything I've eaten today seems to go straight through me. Bleaurgh! Seems to be settling down now though so hopefully it's just a 24hr thing.

Hung in there and made it through the whole work day in spite of it all. Things still pretty good at work although the boss seems to be going through one of his "things" which is quite annoying. I was trying to go home after five and he was still ranting on to me about how we will have to change the whole Saturday timetable for January (even though I worked my butt off to get the damn thing organised!!) And other crazy things like that.

Had dinner with mum but came home pretty early because I'm feeling really tired and drained from the 'illness' today. I have an early meeting tomorrow and another one on Friday so I think I'd better get to bed early tonight. Sorry it's been a bit boring today.

Yes it was back to work today. *sigh* Getting out of bed early and lasting the whole day were both a bit tricky, but other than that it was OK. I'm still doing the secondment that I really enjoy. It's great, but I have to admit I'm starting to dread the time that I have to go back to my usual job role.

Anyway I don't really have anything interesting to say so based on popular demand I have decided to post some more photos I'd better watch out or this will end up becoming a photo blog instead of a journal.

I haven't gotten Trent to resize any more NYE ones yet so I'll just post some older photos instead:

First is one of me and Billikins taken in March...

Next is me as a young-un with something resembling a tea-cozy on my head...

Next is a pic of me with Neil Innes (anyone who doesn't know of Neil - he worked with Monty Python and wrote a lot of music for them and appeared in some of their films. He was also in the "Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band" he also made "The Rutles" with Eric Idle and he created lots of kids shows and wrote music for them - like Puddle Lane and Raggy Dolls - he's cool!)...

This is a few years ago dressed up for a 70s and 80s party (Trent is 70s and I'm 80s - obviously) Why am I posting this? It's embarrassing. hahahaha

And lucky last is me juggling while sitting on Brighton Beach (in Melbourne not England)...

And here's a less wobbly one where you can also see the crowd along the river...

Here's Jess alseep on the tram on the way home...

And last but not least, "A portrait of the artist as a young man". Yes this is Trent's self portrait. A photo he took of himself on the tram on the way home. Taken in the old favourite 'Thelma & Louise' style of photography...

We went round to Ken & Belle's. On the way I saw lots of people out jogging and power walking and stuff. Obviously made New Year's resolutions about being fit. I wonder how long it will last. It was just starting to pour with rain as we were driving so I think most of them would have given up pretty quickly. When we got to Ken & Belle's it was bucketing down. No good for a BBQ but luckily they have a big George Foreman grill (or something similar) and so they cooked up the meat on that. There were lots of yummy salads and things that people had brought too. As usual I ate ALL DAY!

There were quite a few people there and it was a lovely afternoon with everyone just eating and chatting and having a laugh. Belle was playing daggy old 70s and 80s songs and trying to get us to guess the song and artist. I'm good at those type of things. Ken's brother Jeff (who I went to uni with) came later in the day with his longterm girlfriend Tina and we found out they just got engaged 3 days ago which was quite exciting! We were there until quite late and then basically came home to bed.

After all the rain yesterday we woke to find that the cracks in the top of the walls in the bathroom were leaking. This was extremely annoying as my almost brand new box of tissues had turned into a giant lump of paper mache. Also it was going to need a lot of clean up work. On the plus side though it reminded us that moving out of here is a really good idea! Also it forced me to clean out all the bathroom cabinets and get stuff sorted. This means I am now a step ahead for moving house. Me doing that also then inspired Trent to go into the other room and start sorting through the books ready for moving.

We then had bags of old books, old jewelery, little knick knacks and stuff. So we took them all down to one of those charity bins. Now we are helping a good cause and also making it easier for ourselves to pack. Trent also took a bunch of his old PC games down to Game Traders and got a voucher so he can buy himself a new game when one comes along that he wants. We also did the grocery shopping while we were out and tried to buy lots of healthy food. Although I then came home and ate a stack of Jaffa Cakes which a mate of mine sent me from England (since we can't get them in Australia) Oops! I feel like I've just been eating non-stop since before Christmas! Did some more washing and finished cleaning the bathroom and all that stuff. Phew! Now trying to take a bit of a time-out. I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Anyway, will try to come back later this evening and post some photos

Mood - Sad that my holidays are over
Music - Murder on the Dancefloor - Sophie Ellis Bextor

So here we are.....2006. Where does the time go? I can still remember writing in my little diary on New Years Eve "Wow it's so weird to think that this is 1991 now and that I will be turning 14 this year" hehehe. The scary thing is it doesn't seem like all that long ago. Actually what's really scary is that I've just realised I turn 30 this year!!!

Last night was cool. Jess came round to our place. She gave us some real Egyptian cotton sheets which she brought back from Egypt! We got the tram into the city and met Ken & Belle at Federation Square. We went for a wander down the river and across Birrarung Marr (sp?) We were checking out all the people everywhere. Lots of kids with plastic light sabres. Also they were playing Ghostbusters on the big screen! Cool! "When someone asks if you're a God, you say YES!!" We went back up to Fed Square and had dinner and some Japanese beer at Chocolate Buddha. Yummy! All the waiters were dressed up to the theme of jungle/voodoo which was kinda cool. And one guy was dressed as Wally from Where's Wally! While we were eating dinner they had the kids fireworks which we could see out the windows. When we came out there was some dip from Chanel nine recording reports from among the crowd.

After dinner we walked down along Southgate. It was really packed down there, especially where the band was playing. We watched some buskers who were quite good. We walked down to the bridge between Southgate and Crown. Crossed over and walked back up Flinders St and back across to Birrarung Marr again. We bought some fairy floss and dodgy "Pinapple Crush" drink and got ourselves a good spot on the hill. We had a perfect view of the fireworks which were right in front of us (there was also another set directly behind us and some off to the right) The fireworks were really impressive. They went for ages and there were heaps of them. Lots of fancy ones too!

After the fireworks we waited a bit for the crowds to disperse. Then we walked up to the trams and waited for our tram to arrive. We crammed in with everyone else. Jess and I got seats but Trent stood up. Jess fell asleep and Trent was making weird faces at me to pass the time and make me laugh. Got back and Jess drove home. And we went to bed. Sleeeeeepy.

This morning I woke at 7am but I just got up to the toilet and then went back to sleep. I dozed until about 10ish. Mum rang up and I said Happy New Year and she said "I'm going to throw away your Literature CATs (assignments) from Year 12" Yes Mum is having a big clean out of her house. Yesterday there was a message from her on our answering machine asking if I still wanted my old Brownie bag or my old school bag

Anyway, we are going to a BBQ at Ken & Belle's today so I really should get off my butt and get started on this year!

Well this is my last entry for the year. And I better keep it fairly short because a) It's too hot sitting in here, I want to go back into the lounge with the air conditioner, and b) I've gotta start getting ready to go out for NYE soon.

I read RatDog's journal entry which had a list of good and bad things from the year. I thought that was a really cool idea only I'm not sure how much I can actually remember from the year!

In Feb Trent's Grandad died. That was really sad.

In March we saw The Goodies and I met Bill which was really cool.

Most of the year we spend house hunting which SUCKS! but........

We have now bought a house (if everything actually goes to plan) and will be moved in by the end of Jan. Yay!

In November we saw The Goodies again and I got to meet Tim & Graeme (and also several members from the GROK site!)

At the start of the year at work I was stuck with a team I don't like and a Team Leader I CAN'T STAND!! but....

I complained to the boss and got moved to my old team which I like much better and has a Team Leader who is much easier to deal with. PLUS at the moment I'm seconded to a position which I'm really enjoying!!

I can't really think of anything else much to say. I guess it hasn't been an overly eventful year for me.

New Year's Resolutions

I don't usually make resolutions because I'm fairly crappy at sticking to them. But I do have a few small goals to start out 2006 with....

1. I will suck up to the boss and try to stay in this secondment as long as possible.

2. I will devote my spare time and energy in January to getting organised and moving into the new place in a sensible and easy manner.

3. Once we are moved in and settled in to the new place I will get off my arse and start doing excercise again. I will cut some fat and sugar out of my diet, get back into my good habits again and try to lose some weight and just generally get a bit healthier.

Well that's all from me. Hope everyone has a great New Years. Catch you all in 2006!!

Mood - Warm and sleepy but looking forward to going out
Music - Dance mix of the Theme to the A-Team

Wendesday night we went and saw Peter Jackson's King Kong. It was quite good. Probably a bit longer than strictly necessary but it was a good bit of entertainment. The giant bugs freaked me out. I hate bugs!! We seem to have an infestation of cockroaches at the moment. I hate cockroaches!!

Thursday we went to my Uncle's place for a BBQ. It was just my Uncle and his girlfriend, and my Mum and Trent & I. We sat out in the backyard chatting and eating. It was nice and relaxed. Then towards the end of the afternoon suddenly a big swarm of bees came into the back yard and started buzzing around. There were hundreds of them! It freaked me out! I swear the bugs are out to get me!

When we got home, I think Trent was going a bit stir-crazy. Too much time hanging about the house and too much time with our relos all the time! So he suddenly decided at about 8:30 that we should go out. So we jumped on the tram and went into the city. We walked along Soutgate and the Crown Casino area. We had some supper at Automatic and then wandered back. It was quite nice. Trent took some photos of buskers and the big gas flame jet thingies. As we were walking back there were Fire Engines and an ambulance parked in front of the restaurants. A few of the restaurants had been evacuated and one of them had the roof sprinklers on which were dripping all over the restaurant. There didn't seem to be any actual fire though.

This morning I woke about 5am with another one of these goddamn stomach spasm thingies. I think maybe all the rich Christmas food and stuff is making things worse. Also the fact that we've been either grazing all day or having a late lunch - so that I'm not hungry for dinner until 9 or 10pm. I don't think my body can digest the food properly when I eat that late. I don't know. I think I'm grasping at straws now. Once I get back to work and back to a sensible eating and sleeping routine I'll see how I go. If it keeps happening then, I'll have to go to my GP. Grrrr Today we went to Trent's mum's for a lunch get-together thing. More relos!! Lots of Trent's mum's friends were there too. Trent and I were the only people under the age of 55!! Eeek! It was sooo hot today and I was really tired. I was glad to leave the old-person lunch. Tee hee.

Tonight we've mostly been vegging out. My friend rang who has just got back from Christmas in England and travelling in Egypt before that. I think I will try to go to bed early. And since it is now 10pm I will NOT eat anything else (even though of course I am hungry now) And anyone else who is Melbourne tonight will know it's going to be a bad night for sleeping. Since it was about 38 degrees today and will be 42 tomorrow!! That's supposed to be the meaning of life not the bloody temperature!! Phew! Anyway, think I'll curl up in bed with the Pythons autobiography and see if I can get SOME sleep in this crazy heat!

After my Grandparents left on Boxing Day we didn't really do anything much. We just lazed around mostly. Yesterday I woke with stupid stomach cramp/spasm things again. Looks like those dumb Metamucil tablet things aren't helping. Maybe I need to try for a bit longer yet. I went back to sleep for a while, then when I got up we went down to Camberwell to have a look in the shops (still too crazy to go to Chadstone yet). I found a second-hand copy of "Singstar Party" for 26 bucks which was cool! Now I have "Singstar" and "Singstar 80s" and "Singstar Party". The only one I don't have yet is "Singstar Pop". I'll probably buy that soon too. I hope they bring out some other versions as well! Then we went to JB and discovered the DVDs of "At Last the 1948 Show" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set" which of course we bought!

We had some lunch at Georges then came back home. We watched the Dr Who Christmas Special (which we had, ahem, borrowed from someone over the internet) Then we played my new Singstar Party for a while. Trent doesn't really like the Singstar games much - mostly because it's the only game ever invented that I can actually beat him at! Then when our voices started to hurt from singing too much we played Buzz! for a while instead. We had dinner and watched "At Last the 1948 Show" until bedtime. It was very cute. Funny to see a lot of the seeds for later Goodies and Python sketches. And they all look so young in it!

Today we have started to do a bit of housework. General stuff like washing dishes and clothes. It really never ends. Kind of feels like my life revolves around housework at the moment. If I get really enthused I may even start trying to pack later on today.

If you are squeamish or you don't like hearing about bodily functions and such-like then I would recommend NOT reading this section. You have been warned. OK so on Thursday I went for my six-month check up at the hospital. The doc seemed to think that all matters relating to my female innards seem to be running as well as we can expect. So I should just continue as I have been with that stuff. With regards to the stomach cramps/spasms/pains which have been waking me in the night the doc seems to think it's more likely that these are related to my bowels than my girl-bits. Apparently the CAT scan I had back in June showed an unusual amount of "matter" in my lower intestines and bowel. The doctor said, and I quote "This means you are reeeeaallly constipated". Oh great I already eat loads of fruit and a fair bit of vegies. I also drink bucketloads of water already. So he suggested I should start taking Metamucil as well. I bought a jar of metamucil tablets (thank god they come as tablets now - that gritty watery fake orange flavoured stuff that you're meant to drink is repulsive!) So I've been taking the tablets but they don't really seem to be having any effect as yet. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes. And I've got to go back to the hospital in another six-months. Hoorah

Friday Trent was at work (by himself because all his colleagues have gone on leave already!) I was at home cleaning the house. Seems like that's all we ever do lately! How can there still be things left to clean?? I started outside because it was a really hot day and I wanted to get things done before it got tooo hot. I started trying to clean off the outdoor table and chairs and umbrella and stuff. It was really hard to clean. Then when I tried to rinse off the table all these spiders started coming out! Argh! There was a huge huntsman. Ick! And also a freaky looking spider which just seemed like one of those ones where you've only got three minutes to get to the hospital if it bites you! I started to doubt my sanity at this point, given that I was only in thongs, t-shirt and shorts and that I'd been wiping off the table using a cloth and my bare hands and given that Trent wasn't there to help me or rush me off to hospital within the three minutes if I happened to get bitten by one of these things! So that's about the time I gave up on the outdoor stuff and just cleaned and tidied inside. I got things pretty well organised and hid the left over mess in the bedrooms since the plan was to close them off anyway.

That night we went to Trent's cousin's place for a family Christmas dinner. This is the cousin (Cathy) who has had all the trouble trying to conceive. She only recently had the operation to help her, and then had to go back to hospital again when she got an infection. Apparently she's OK again now but has to take things easy. So we just had take-away chicken and chips and potatoes for dinner. Cathy bought her sister Nicole two guinea pigs for Christmas. Their names are Hamish and Petunia. They are cute. One of them peed on Nicole though. Which half the family though was hillarious! The next morning we got up early and went to the supermarket for last minute Christmas food before the shops got toooo insane. We then spent the day alternating between procrastinating and actually cleaning/tidying/organising stuff.

Christmas Day mum came over around lunchtime. We had cheeses and dips with crackers and vegies. That was basically our lunch. We hung about chatting, watching telly and preparing things and mum cooked the meat in our oven. In the late afternoon my Uncle and his girlfriend came round for an hour or so too. Then Trent's Aunt, Uncle, Nanna and Mum came - and the dog! We all exchanged presents, chatted, ate and ate and ate. Then ate dinner as well! We played our groovy "Christmas Cocktails" CDs. Very funky lounge-music type Christmas songs. I had a call from my workmate Peter saying that he was coming round too. Since Peter is gay and was bringing his boyfriend Kevin and a very camp mate of theirs called Scott - I was a bit worried about how the family might react - mainly Trent's Nanna. I also wasn't too sure about how the gay-boy brigade would react to a bunch of old relos. As it happened they got lost on the way here and in the meantime all the relos had packed up and gone home! Peter & Kevin and Scott got here eventually so we sat down and had a drink and a chat with them. They felt a bit like a breath of fresh air after having the relos here for hours!

Why is it called Boxing Day? Anyway, this morning we got up tidied away the last of the mess from yesterday. Then my Grandparents (who are down here from Queensland) came over. On their way down to Melbourne my Grandad fell over and got a big black eye and five stitches. I'm a bit worried about them driving to Melbourne each year. I really hope they fly next time. We exchanged presents with them, watched a bit of cricket, had some Christmas leftovers for lunch and then they left. And now for the first time in what feels like a million years, we actually have some free time to do whatever.OK technically we should start packing but we've got to have a bit of leisure time.

Regards all the house business...looks like we will get a bit knocked off the price due to something the solicitors found in the contract. That will make the amount of extra cash we have to find a little lower. So it looks like we will go ahead and borrow the last small bits from our Mums. Unfortunately things are still all up in the air a bit because we have to wait til all the solicitors and the lender and the mortgage broker finish their holidays and sort it out for us. Seems like things will work out though. I have to admit I still feel kind of sad about it, I wish it didn't all have to go so crazy. But I really should just be thankful that we're able to sort things out.

Anyway, now I'm listening to They Might Be Giants. Their song "Angel" always reminds me of The Goodies now because I had it stuck in my head all day on the day of the signing and the show. Trent wants to go to the movies tonight but I think it will be too busy. Either way, time for some relaxing I think!

Mood - Phew! The Christmas madness is over!
Music - They Might Be Giants

I should have known. I should have known. I should have known. Everything was going along too smoothly. Things were working well. Life was good. I should have known that things are never that easy. Especially for us.Yes, the house buying thing has gone cactus. After house-hunting nearly all year, busting our arses trying to be careful and thorough and sensible and doing tonnes of research and everything else. We finally found a place we liked for a price which seemed reasonable. It all seemed right. But no. I should have learned by now that things never work that way.Yesterday at work I had a call from the mortgage broker. The credit union who we are meant to be getting the mortgage from sent their valuer to the house and he has valued it waaaaaaaayyyyyy lower than what we paid for it. (This freaked me out but having spoken to a few people in the last 2 days it seems that this happens a bit. One of my work colleagues had their property valued at $80,000 below what they paid!) Now I know they have to be overly conservative and really they have to sort of quote the lowest possible price they would get if they had to sell the place (ie if we forfeit on our loan payments) and I guess they have to allow for the possibility that we might trash the place a bit too. I think their valuation is complete bollocks and I'm not worried that we're paying too much. But....

The issue is that the Credit Union (and most lenders) will only let you borrow a maximum of 95% of the value of the property. But that is based on THEIR valuation of the value, not what you pay for the place. So the amount they are now willing to loan us is not going to be enough. We are basically left with three options:1. Go back to the seller and try to get him to reduce the price. The theory is that he might do this rather than have to go through the hassle of putting the house back on the market. Hmm seems extremely unlikely to me!2. Try and argue with the valuers or get a new valuation done in the hope that we can increase the perceived value of the property. Again, seems very unlikely. OR...3. To make up the difference between what the credit union is now willing to lend us and the amount we need, we could pluck the extra money out of our.....well, out of somewhere.

Oh and technically there is a 4. which is: Cancel the sale. Not only do we then lose our deposit which we've spent 5 hard years saving for but we also run the risk that the seller can sue us for the difference between what we offered and what they end up selling it for. Plus we've then got to start from scratch saving a new deposit and hunting for another house. NO THANKS!

So as you can imagine, yesterday was not a good day for me. I was crying a lot and ended up coming home early from work with a big fat headache.

On the plus side...

Things are looking slightly brighter today. There seem to be a few more promising options opening up to us. Our solicitors called and said we may have a chance of negotiating with the seller because they told us the car space was included on the title and it's not. So maybe they will be willing to reduce the price at least a little bit for that. Also I was speaking to the girl at work whose property was valued at $80,000 under price. She told me that they ended up going to a different lender and it all went through. She's given me the name and number of the person she dealt with who has said he's more than happy to chat to us. Another woman at work has a sister who works in a bank and she's given me a number for a woman in her department who looks after home loans. So I'll try calling both of them and just see what the possibilities are.

The other thing is that if all else fails - both our mums have offered to loan us the extra money we need (or half from each of them) Which is lovely of them, but I can't help but feel guilty - even though I know they both really want to help.

Let's talk about something else!OK well today was my last day of work for the year. Yay! We all got given a bottle of wine which was nice. I also got some Christmas cards and choccies from different people. We had lunch at Silver Thai up the road which was nice too.

We're just hanging in there and working hard to sort it all out. I'm sure we will get there in the end. It's just going to be a bumpier road than we were expecting

Sunday definately not a day of rest for me! Got up and did some more cleaning/tidying and washed all the clothes. Went out to get some lunch and then did the normal grocery shopping (this is good because now I have some food to eat instead of being tempted to eat all the Christmas food before Christmas Day!!)We also went up to the RSPCA to get some Christmas cards.

Came home and wrapped some presents. Had a shower and then it was time to go out. Went round to friends Anita & Nic's house. They have just pulled up their carpets and the floorboards sanded and polished. Looks really nice! We then went to the Dumpling King (yummy restaurant) and met Alisa & Barry and Simone there. I always have a Christmas catch-up dinner with my old school friends each year.

The food was nice and we had a bottle of sparkling red which I drank too much of! We had the banquet which is always huge and I only ate a little bit of the main course. But I still had room for my banana fritter and ice-cream for dessert. There's always room for dessert. It goes in a different stomach that's why. The dessert stomach.

Came home and pretty much went straight to bed. Woke up a bit lost trying to figure out what day it was and whether I could sleep in. Remembered that I still have to work for a few more days yet. Then three minutes later the alarm went off.

Went into work and worked really hard and fast to get most stuff done this morning. I have built up way too much flexi time again (too many early morning meetings. Another tomorrow and Wednesday yet to come!) and so to get rid of some of my flexi I came home at 2:00. Yay!

Did a bit more tidying. Not much more I can do now though. Have to do things at the last minute really because most things if I clean/tidy now they will only be messy again by Christmas Day. Also had to make a few phone calls, the solicitor re our new house paperwork and the hospital to confirm my check-up appointment this Thursday.

Also rang the Monash IVF institute. We have decided instead of presents for Trent's family this year we are going to make a donation to the Fertility clinic. As mentioned in one of my previous journal entries Trent's cousin has been trying to get pregnant and had lots of troubles. So we figured this would be a good thing to do for Christmas. But when I rang up and said I wanted to enquire about making a donation the lady said "So you want to be an egg donor?" Agh! Nearly gave me a heart attack. Not sure if my eggs would be much use to anyone anyway given my own history of "female issues".

Anyway enough of that stuff. Mum is coming round tonight instead of our usual Wednesday dinner. She wants to check out the Singstar games on my PS2. Oh and did I mention Trent bought me another Singstar game? So now as well as Singstar 80s I also have the original Singstar game. Yay!

I think that's all for now

Mood - Worn out by xmas-madness but still enjoying it
Music - Dream a little Dream - The Mamas and the Papas

OK it's been a while (I've been slack - well no, actually I've been busy) so I'd better try and catch up on everything

A few weeks ago while house-hunting we looked at a place that we thought was quite nice. I phoned the real estate agent during the week and asked him to fax me the paperwork to check out. He never faxed it and I never heard anything else. When I went back to look at the property online it had been taken off. So I assumed it had been sold.

Then last Friday night (the night I wrote my last journal entry) I was looking at properties online and I saw a place I liked the look of. Soon I realised it was the same place, just different pictures. And when I read the blurb it was really funny and didn't sound like anything a Real Estate agent would have written. At the bottom of the blurb it said that the vendor was selling the property himself and not going through a real estate agent. The quoted price was also lower than the Real Estate Agent's price and there was a comment saying rather than paying fees to the Agent the Vendor would pass on the savings to the buyer.

I emailed the details to Trent and said "We should go and have another look at this place". And so on the Saturday we went and had another look. We met the guy who was selling the place and his wife. He had bought the place around 5 years ago and had pretty much gutted it and started from scratch. He'd renovated the whole place to live in himself. Then he met his (now) wife and she already had her own place as well. So they decided to live in her house and sell his house.We decided that we really liked the place and so we organised with the seller to come back the next day so that our families could have a look at the place too.

That night we had a break from house business for a while. Some friends of ours have been living in England for the last 4 or 5 years and have just moved back to Australia. So we went round to their new place and had a lovely dinner and chat and lots of excellent red wine. Yummy!

The next day we went across to the house again where we met my mum, Trent's mum and my Uncle. They all seemed to like the place which was good. My Uncle has been renovating his place for years so he has a really good eye for structural integrity of houses and can spot bad workmanship a mile off. He was really impressed with the place which was a good sign.

So our families left and we went back in to negotiate with the seller and his wife. They had made us tea and coffee and had chocolate biscuits which was nice. We sat and negotiated for a bit. Then Trent and I went for a short walk to make a decision. Then we went back and negotiated some more.

It was pretty short really. We came up with a price we were all happy with and a settlement date we were all happy with. We all shook hands and then the seller popped open a bottle of French Champagne which we drank while we did all the paperwork stuff. It was soooo much nicer than having to deal with a real estate agent! I have to admit it was completely terrifying though!!!

After we left Trent phoned his mum (who had had to go to work) to tell her the good news. We then drove round to my Uncle's place where my mum, my Uncle and his girlfriend were all waiting expectantly. I said we'd bought the place and my mum screamed for joy and jumped in the air and hugged us both.

We left my Uncle's about 2pm and went and had some late lunch. We came home and had a power nap for about half an hour (it was exhausting!) and then had to get up to go to my work Christmas do.

When we got to the venue for the Christmas do there was a queue out the door. It was hot and sticky, people were smoking and the queue wasn't moving at all. We were almost ready to give up and go home when some others from work arrived. Luckily Sandra's sister works at the venue so she managed to get us all in straight past the queue.When we got in it was soo crowded and sooo hot and soo loud we just wanted to leave. We stayed for a drink or two and then said to the others that we were going outside for a bit. We went outside and walked along the wharf in the cool breeze. That was nice!

The others came out from the venue too because they were sick of it as well. We all decided to just go back to Kathy's place and get pizza instead.After the pizza we came back home and tumbled into bed. I was completely exhausted but I couldn't sleep because I was still scared and happy about buying the house.

What a weekend! Phew!!

This week has been dragging so slowly. Things are busy at work and the boss has been a bit cranky. Have also been phoning up solicitors and mortgage brokers and stuff, trying to get this house buying thing moving along. Also had to call the landlord and break the news to him that we are moving out.

Thursday night we had Trent's work Christmas Party. It was quite nice. Just a dinner at a pub/bistro type thing. Friday night I had another one of my work Christmas things which was also at a pub/bistro type thing.

Today we did not have to go house hunting and we also did not have to feel guilty about not house hunting! Amazing! It would have been nice to celebrate this fact by lying in bed all day but no such luck. We got up and started cleaning the house in a very thorough way. Man I hate house-work!Then we went out to the shops and bought some Christmas presents and started stocking up on food in preparation for Christmas Day when everyone is coming over here.

Now I know why they call it the silly season! I need a rest

This journal entry is sooooo looooooooong no-one is going to want to read it!

Wednesday night I went out to dinner with Mum, which I always do on Wednesday nights. We found out that Trent's cousin Cathy has had to go into hospital due to an infection from an operation/procedure that she had. She's been having trouble conceiving. They went to try IVF but were not even able to harvest any eggs. When she had this operation they found that her ovaries were trapped in behind her bowel! They were able to shift them back to the right spot for her. So her possibility of having kids is looking slightly more positive. But now this infection and she's had to go back to hospital! Who would be a female? Honestly. Why would ya? My hormones have gone all doolally and cockamamie at the moment (yet again) but I wont go on about that because no-one wants to hear it - least of all me!

Things have been quite busy and crazy at work. Yesterday was OK though because I had my team's Christmas lunch. We all trooped up to the local Thai restaurant and had some yummy lunch. We also exchanged Kris Kringle presents. I got a beaded box full of bath salts, soaps and that sort of gear. I always seem to get stuff like that for Kris Kringle. I guess people have no idea what to buy me. It's cool though because I like that bath stuff anyway really.

We also had a surprise visitor at our team lunch. A guy called Miki who used to work with us popped in for a visit. He had come to tell us his big news that he got a job working at the Werribee Open Range Zoo (sort of a safari park). The job is working at the lion enclosure doing some kind of dramatic interpretation. (Don't ask me???) He reckons he got the job because he was the only applicant who dressed up. He went dressed as a park ranger with plastic binoculars and everything! hahahaha Good old Miki. He always was the wacky one!

Got home last night and had a lovely bath using my new "lavender and vanilla bean" bath salts. It was very nice but it left purple marks on the bath. Oops! Finished writing all the invitations for our Christmas Day get-together. And my uncle dropped round with a bottle of wine and a tea-towel which says "Thanks for collecting the mail" on it. Very cute!

I had to get up early today for another early meeting at work. The alarm went off and interupted me having a totally bizarre dream. I was in the audience at some kind of stage show. I think it was a Disney type show and I think it was taking place on a cruise ship or something. I was in the front seat and there was a Chinese woman sitting next to me with her cat. I was patting the cat and it started to speak (meow) to the woman. Then she translated to me that the cat wanted me to give it something like a present or some money. I had two novelty coins which were souveneirs from the show so I was going to give those to the cat but then I woke up. What the hell was that all about??

Anyway, nothing very interesting happened at work today. The best thing was that I have too much flexi-time built up. They don't like us to accumulate more than 10 hours at a time. I had around 13 hours so to keep mine below 10 I had to leave work at 2pm. Yay! So I've had a nice relaxed afternoon just buggering about on the computer.

Good thing we aren't doing anything tonight because I'm stuffed. It's only 6:30 and I feel like going to bed now!

I had to go last night because dinner was ready. Lovely Vietnamese soup made by my lovely bf. mmmm Anyway here's the rest of my weekend...

Saturday night we watched the DVD of Bubba Ho-Tep. It was very funny. And strange. When there was about 20mins til the end of the movie the electricity went off again!! Luckily it came straight back on so we could watch the end of the movie but all the clocks were out again.

Before I went to bed I did a quick Google search about cramps. I was thinking about the leg cramp I'd had the night before and also wondering if these pains in my lower back and tummy that I've been getting in the middle of the night could possibly be cramps. Opinion seems to be somewhat divided about the causes of cramps. One possibility was dehydrataion. I thought this was unlikely since I drink crap-loads of water and had been eating a fair bit of salty food. But then I thought maybe there were some other kind of electrolyte type things that I could be lacking in. So before I went to bed I drank some "Gastrolyte" which I had left over from when I had a stomach bug last yet. Another possible cause for the cramps was lack of potassium. So I ate half a banana before bed too. It was the best night's sleep I've had for ages! Don't know if it was the electrolyte drink, the banana, or just the fact that I was so tired???

Sunday we decided to go to Camberwell and do some Christmas shopping. Arrived in the carpark to find that it was actually full with the Camberwell Market (which we had forgotten about) So we parked elsewhere and had a browse through the market. Didn't buy much except a Ben Elton book for $3.50, but we did have a good browse and Trent took some cool photos.

Went to the regular shops and bought some Christmas presents including a copy of the first Goodies DVD for my Dad, his gf and my two little half-brothers. Also bought some of those "Make Poverty History" wristbands as small prezzies for my friends. I always like to buy Christmas presents which give some money to charity since Christmas tends to be so extravagent.

Trent's mum was coming round so of course we had to do some quick housework in the afternoon. Then the three of us went out for dinner which was very nice. And then somehow Trent and I agreed to have people round to our place on Christmas Day! What were we thinking? Are we mad? Well hopefully it shouldn't be too bad. It will just be Trent's mum and my mum for dinner and the rest of the arvo/evening we are just inviting family and friends to drop in for drinks and nibblies.

That's about it for my weekend. Yesterday was OK at work. Walter whose dad owns a deli brought in some nice deli-meats and cheeses and Laura got some bread rolls and we ate it all for lunch. Today was busy and stressful and horrible at work though. December is a busy month for us so more craziness ahead I fear.

Last but not least, Leesa sent me some photos from the work Christmas party on Friday night so I thought I'd post one here. I'm only posting the thumbnail but you should be able to see it full size if you click on it. I'm the one third from the right in the black t-shirt with bamboo on it and the goofy smile. hehehehehe

Mood - Trying to wind down after a stressful day
Music - Born Slippy - Underworld

Yes 100 people have viewed my journal! And very fascinating it must have been for them too. hahahaha

Thursday night we went to inspect one of the new townhouses across the road. Not to buy, we could never afford it. Just to have a sticky beak. The bigger one at the front was quoted at $680,000+ and ended up selling for $810,000!!! They are also quoting $680,000+ for this one that we looked at, even though it's smaller and is the middle of the three townhouses. It is lovely inside though. If only we were millionaires!

Friday night I went to one of my work Christmas parties. This one was for the big department that my small department is part of. It was OK. Not very exciting though. A few people were quite drunk which was kind of amusing but no-one did anything scandalous, much to my dissappointment.

I gave Kathy a lift back to her house and got home around 11:30pm. Trent was still up playing Civilzations IV. I went to bed and Trent was still on the computer until 1:30am when there was a power black-out. Don't know what happened but the whole street was out. Trent came to bed, then around half an hour later the stereo in the bedroom decided to switch itself on and started making weird noises!

Woke again a few hours later with a cramp in my leg. I haven't had one of those for years. I used to get them quite regularly when I was younger though. Man they hurt! At this point I also realised that all the clocks in the house were flashing because of the blackout. I got up and put my mobile phone by the bed so I would know what time it was (at this point it was around 4am)

Got up Saturday morning and went to the hairdresser. Thank god! No more grey roots! Did a bit of Christmas shopping. Got Muppets Treasure Island DVD for my little half-brothers. Went househunting. Only saw two houses. The first one was horrible. The second one was absolutely lovely but is bound to be over our Price limit. Poo!

To be continued.............

Mood - Tired as usual. But otherwise OK
Music - London Calling - The Clash

Yesterday was kind of fun at work. The boss decided to give raffle tickets (for free) to every staff member then drew out one every hour and gave them a bottle of red wine. I got to send emails to all the staff announcing the ticket numbers and who the winners were and stuff. Made it an interesting day.

Watched a cool show on the ABC last night. They've had a series of shows about the music scores which go with different films. I've seen the one on "love" films and the one for "hero" films but last night was for "comedy" films so it was really interesting.

Mum called me at work today to blab on about nothing. She's on long service leave at the moment which means she is spending a fair bit of time at home alone. This means I can start expecting a lot of phone calls blabbing on about nothing. *sigh*

Spoke to the mortgage broker today to arrange to extend our loan pre-approval. We are also increasing the amount. The pre-approvals last for three months. I really hope we will have found a place before this one runs out!

One of my mates at work told me today that a former work colleague of ours fancied me!! I was a bit freaked out and totally shocked! I tend to think that guys don't notice me (or if they notice me then I don't notice them noticing me - hehehe). Not that I think I'm ugly or anything. I'm just kind of average. And I'm a bit lazy with my appearance, especially at work. I never would have picked that this guy liked me. He had a long term gf and he knew that I'm with Trent. Apparently he had an erotic dream about me! Eek!I have to admit I'm flattered but totally shocked too!

Trent and I have been playing my new playstation games. It's fun playing Buzz the Music Quiz together. And the Singstar 80s games. We discovered that the voice for Buzz is done by Jason Donovan! He really does a good job of the hammy game show host!

Been out househunting again. Saw two places yesterday which were quite good. Now we've got to decide whether we like them enough to get serious. (Get a hold of the Section 32. See the solicitors again. Be prepared to bid at auction for one or put in an offer for the other. Etc, etc, etc....) Last week we looked at a house which we realised we had seen before. Ages and ages ago before we started seriously hunting. On the for sale sign it said that it was a decease estate. I said "Do you realise that this means, in the time we've been househunting: this house has been sold. A person has bought the house, lived in the house, DIED in the house and now it's being sold again. And meanwhile we are STILL househunting!!"

Friday was Trent's Nanna's birthday so we went round yesterday and took her some flowers and chocolates. She told us the same old stories she always tells us But this time she mentioned that she'd been watching Home and Away - which I thought was quite funny.

Also yesterday I went to the post office to collect my exciting parcel which had arrived in the mail. The lovely cscamp from here at GROK had sent me a vid with TBT & GG on Bert's Good Morning Australia, and also the Funky Gibbon episode of Spicks and Specks. Cool! She also sent me a book about Footlights which is really intersting. Trent and I were reading it in the car in between open houses while we were househunting yesterday.

Spent nearly all day today doing housework And felt totally stuffed afterwards Still have to do the grocery shopping yet but at least we have a nice clean house to collapse in now.

Well, I went and did it. After a week or two of deliberating and trying to talk myself out of it I have gone and bought myself a PS2. I got the console in a bundle with the new "Buzz!" game. So I got the new silver slimline PS2 console with a controller, I got the Buzz! game and the 4 buzzer paddle things for that. I also bought "Singstar 80s" which came with two microphones. And I also bought "Taito Legends" which has cool old games like Bubble Bobble on it. The whole lot only cost me $370 which I think is really good. (even though I can't really afford it anyway - hehehe)

They had a big late-night pre-Christmas sale thing on at Chadstone Shopping Centre last night. I met Mum there. They were giving away free champagne. Mum bought some clothes for herself and some books for Trent & I for Christmas. I bought a big bag of Chai tea and the PS2 stuff. We had dinner at the Pancake Parlour which mum seems to love lately for some weird reason.

Work has been average this week. Nothing much of note happening really. Catherine and Leesa (the girls whose uncle died last week) were suddenly called downstairs when their mum (who also works at our organisation) had to be taken away in an ambulance! Aparently their mum is OK now, but man are they having a bad few weeks! Poor girls!

Oh and our home puter is back up and running and perfectly happy. Hooray!

OK. It's official. I am an internet addict.Our home computer died on Friday and I've been sans internet all weekend. I never realised how much I rely on the internet but once it was gone it all became horribly obvious!Me: "This DVD doesn't have an episode listing on it. I'll go home and look it up on the internet before I buy it" Doh!Trent: "This new X-box game looks interesting but I'll go home and read some reviews on it before I buy it" Doh!Trent: "What do you want to do on Sunday? Should we look up and see what's on?" Doh!Me: "Let's see what's on at the movies" Doh!On and on and on it went! And I wont even mention the GROK withdrawals I was having.So here I am at work after hours (unheard of!) just so I can use the internet.

My internet-free weekend...Friday night we went round to Kathy (my workmate) and John's (her husband). Had a nice BBQ dinner. Sat out on the (undercover) balcony and watched the rain. Then played Trivial Pursuit until late into the night. Trent won - of course!Saturday we went house-hunting. Only looked at a couple of places though so it was fairly relaxed. Then we walked up to the Mexican place for dinner. Had a nice big meal and then wandered home slightly tipsy from Sangria Sunday we sold some old DVDs and books and gave the rest to charity. Did the grocery shopping. Not much else.

I've been thinking about buying myself a PlayStation 2 for Christmas. I'm trying to talk myself out of it because it's a silly idea really. We already have a PC and an X-Box but I don't really play games on either of those. I just keep seeing games I like for PS2.Hmmm, can't afford it anyway really. Gotta pay my car registration instead. Boring!

The Looney LeftMum went to the protest rally on Tuesday about the proposed changes to the industrial relations laws.Here's a pic...Yep, my mum is in there somewhere. She told me about all the "celebs" who were there. Tim Ferguson (former Doug Anthony Allstar) was the MC. Debra Conway was there and sang. John Clarke and Brian Dawe did one of their bits. Lots of current and former politicians. It was a huge turnout. Melbourne more so than any other city. Maybe we're just a union town.

I have to admit I don't think it will have any effect on John Howard though. (A friend at uni told me her politics lecturer referred to John Howard as "The vile muppet" and that descrption has always remained in my mind) As TBT said, it's like Australia is entering our own period of Thatcherism. I'm quite certain that the new IR laws will get through. My only hope now is that people will finally see they've gone too far and vote them out. Not that the others are really all that much better these days, but I'm sure they'd reverse the IR changes if they got in. Even if it's just to be popular and not for any moral reasons. At least it would be done.

Bitch, bitch, moan, moanAs daftbird correctly surmised, my recent spate of pain and illness is related to the dreaded "Secret Womens Business". :'( I am scheduled for a hospital checkup on December 22nd but starting to wonder if I should go and see my GP in the meantime. I'll see what happens in the next week. I hope the hospital will let me keep my CAT scans. I already know they came up all clear because I got anxious and rang the hospital the week after the scan. I think it would be kind of cool to have some pictures of my insides. I have a few X-rays and some ultrasounds but this was my first CAT.

What's been happening?

A fairly uneventful week for me really. I emailed my question for The Goodies to that Mix 94.5 in Perth and they read it out on air. I can't believe they said my full name too! Gave me a shock that did! Maybe I shouldn't have asked such a silly question. heheehe Oh well. It gave them a laugh anyway.

Had a sad moment at work the other day. Two of the girls I work with (who are sisters) found out that their uncle had died suddenly of a heart attack. He was only in his 60s. Poor Catherine was absolutely sobbing. It broke my heart to see her. I wanted to cry too and I don't even know him! :'( I got the boss to let me use the corporate card to send some flowers to the girls. I hope they are OK.

On a lighter note I had an email from my Dad with some new photos of my lovely little half-brothers. They live in Brisbane so I only get to see them once a year. Julian is 3yo and Edward is 18months.

I think that's all for now

*edit* hmmm apparently the crying face isn't working

Mood - Happy but slightly manic tending to tiredness.
Music - Somethin Stupid - the original Frank & Nancy one

Woke up with pains again this morning. Only at 7am this time though. Still feeling crummy and very tired most of the day I'm sooo over it!

Went into the city on the tram. Wandered wistfully past the GPO. I can't beleive it was just over a week ago that we were all there meeting Timbo & Gray-boots. Feels like a million years ago already.

Went and saw Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" It was very cute. I found it a bit slow in some parts though.

Realised today that in the Rogue Traders' song Way to Go she actually says "Wear a tie. Go to the gym. You'll never die." This makes a lot more sense than what I thought she was singing which was "Wear a tiger to the gym. You'll never die" Gotta love mondegreens.

P.S. We did the grocery shopping and thank God "The Smasher" was not working on the check-outs tonight. (You can guess how gently she handles our fruit and veg)

Dinner and a movie with our mates, but then Trent was working late so he totally missed dinner and only just made it in time for the movie. I have to admit I was a bit peeved, not so much with him but with his work. I always feel like they work him too hard and they take advantage of him. I was a little bit peeved with him too for letting them take advantage of him. Especially since he still didn't get it all done and had to bring home work for the weekend.

Anyway enough whinging about that. We saw "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". I didn't really know much about it and was a bit dubious - but I LOVED it! It was really funny and clever and quite different. Strikes me as the type of film you either love or hate, so if anyone else sees it and hates it - don't blame me! heehehehe But I really enjoyed it.

- Saturday AM:

Woke before 5am in pain. Stomach and lower back and feeling really lousy. Not sure what time I eventually got back to sleep but it was starting to get light. Woke again at 8am when Trent was getting up. More pain in stomach. Went back to sleep.Woke again at 10am feeling a bit better.

Trent had gotten up at 8am and done all the work he brought home for the weekend. I think he knew I was a bit peeved so he got it all done before I even got out of bed. So when I got up he said "My work's all done. Let's go out for brunch." So we went and had a yummy brunch (I had pancakes with toasted banana, maple syrup and ice-cream! yum!)

- Saturday PM:

Still feeling a bit bleaurgh and very tired so we had a nice quiet afternoon. Put on the new Muppetts DVDs we bought (Season 1 of the original TV show ) and just vegged out on the couch. Dozed in and out of sleep a few times.

Also watched the Iron Chef (that show is so cool) and some Goodies eps.And now it's time for bed

P.S. Oh I nearly forgot. I had another email from my namesake. Turns out she is Scottish. Cool!

P.P.S. Also forgot to mention that this is the first Saturday in aaaaaaages that we DID NOT GO HOUSE-HUNTING! hooray! A Saturday to ourselves.

Mood - Sick and tired of being sick and tired :-X
Music - The Cure - Mixed Up

Bit of a weird start to the day today. Was half asleep and had to drag myself to an early meeting. Then the meeting ran overtime and the boss was really peeved with us.He called the whole team into the lunch room to tell us off He was chewing us out right up to 11am - then being Remembrance Day he said we could now observe our minute silence and he walked out. Weird!

I'm sure everyone was thinking about being yelled at instead of thinking about the fallen soldiers though.I can't think too much about the fallen soldiers or I'll just cry. Same reason I never watch anything about war on telly. It just gets to me.

On a lighter note - they have used my voice for one of the automated answers on the phone system at work. Wow! Fame at last Also I've noticed I now have an "Opinionated" badge. Hooray for me!

Also - I got a reply email from the girl with the same name as me! She thought it was amazing too and wanted to know about me so I've sent another reply. It was so weird seing the email in my inbox with MY NAME as the sender! Very strange indeed.

Can't think of anything else interesting which happened to me today - and it's time to go out and start the weekend!Whoooo hooooooo!!!!!

Mood - Relieved - I made it to Friday!
Music - Dance mix of the A-Team theme from Spaced

Nothing very interesting happened today so I thought I'd make a random list of........

STUFF I LIKE:

The Goodies - well duh!

Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - The books, the radio plays, the tv series, the movie, the towel.... It's amazingly amazing. Douglas Adams was such a genius. Such a sad loss.

Mythbusters - Adam & Jamie rock my world!

Tea! Tea, tea, tea. A nice cup of milky Chai when I want something sweet. Low caffeine Madura tea for during the day at work when I must drink 17 cups a day to survive. A refreshing jasmine or green tea with an Asian meal. Or a classic cup of Earl Grey. mmmmmmmmmm

P.S. Through the wonders of Google I have discovered three other people with the same name as me. One is a Dr at Cambridge University. One is some sort of legal representative in Hawaii. The other one was looking for work as a barmaid in Spain in 2002. She had an email address there so I've emailed her. I wonder if she will write back. She will probably think I'm a freak. hahahahahahahahaI also discovered some stuff online which was actually about me! I didn't even know it was there!

P.P.S. Yes I am bored. Is it that obvious? hahahahahaWell bf is working late and I'm sitting about waiting for a phone call. My mate was supposed to ring me so we could make plans for tomorrow night then I could ring our other mates and pass on the plans to them. Why hasn't she called yet? It's getting late. Maybe I should call her.Why is there no-one online to talk to when I'm wasting time?

We have decided to ease off a bit on the house-hunting from now until Christmas/New Year. It's getting really draining and hogging up half of every weekend. Soooo over it!

At work, we have taken to calling each other "dick brain" (anyone who has been watching "Media Watch" will understand this)

Had a cool conversation with people at work today about all the old ABC kids favourites. The Goodies (of course) and Monkey, Kenny Everett, Inspector Gadget, Dr Who, and all that lot.What great shows we had to grow up with!

Had dinner with mum tonight at a Japanese restaurant. Yummy. Trent went to the bookshop and bought two Terry Pratchett books to replace old ones of his that he loaned to someone he used work with 4 years ago (don't think he'll be getting the orignals back any time soon)

Well here it is...my first ever journal entry. I suppose I should introduce myself somewhat:

My real name is Sarah. I live in Melbourne, Australia with my bf. We are renting a flat but currently hunting for our first home to buy. I work for a place called VicRoads which is our state roads authority. We look after drivers licenses and car registrations and that sort of thing. I work as a supervisor in the call centre.

So that's the basics. Now to today...

I'm still floating about on the buzz of last Friday. Meeting GG & TBT and then seeing the show in the evening. And of course meeting all the cool people from the site here. It was really a fun day.

I have such an obsessive nature. It's like I'm eating, sleeping and breathing Goodies at the moment. But I'm usually the same any time I see any cool live show or meet any "celebrity"I suppose it's a good thing I'm not into coffee, cigarettes or other drugs. Though I am addicted to tea.

Work is quite good at the moment. I'm doing a different role for a month or so and it's great to have a change. It's also amusing to see that my Team Leader can't really seem to do anything without me there to carry him and it's all gone to sh*t while I'm away